Game Corporations Rule, Independent Studios Drool

hapwned writes "In his third segment for The Escapist, Warren Spector reviews what the ambitious, creative, and talented (but poor) don't want to hear: 'Until and unless the business model changes, I see only one possible outcome: A business that's already heading in a rich-get-richer direction will see the trend accelerated and the situation exacerbated. Those who can afford to compete at the triple-A, movie-budget level will; those who can't will be driven out of business entirely or driven to different parts of the business - boutique online games, cell phone games, casual puzzle games...'"

Comments

Does not apply to StarDock?

[sporkmonger]

That or else they're StarDock and everyone will buy their games anyway because they respect their customers and they know that gameplay is more important than graphics.

New Buisness Models

[Anonymous Coward]

There are new (and emerging) buisness models that are just being brought to the mass market level. With Garage Games' Torque engines you can develop a pretty decent independent game and can market it through XBox live; Nintendo has implied (although I'm not sure it has been announced) that the virtual consoles (like the NES, SNES and N64) will be open to new development and a person could make a really amazing 2D game on the N64 for not too much money.

On a side note, I'm really interested in seeing what Nintendo does; of all of the largest game publishers Nintendo seems to be the only one that is willing to openly say that development cost are getting out of control; and they want people to be able to develop for the Revolution without concern for budget. I'm really curious to see if they can make it possible for a team of 4-8 people (who are working for 6-12 months on a game) to produce and release a game [essentially the team size and time frame of most SNES games].

Exactly. Great games != massive companies.

[WidescreenFreak]

I was thinking that exact same thing myself. StarDock has been around for quite some time. They were just about the only company back in the OS/2 days that recognized that there was a market for OS/2 games, and the games that they made were *good*. The OS/2 community responded by helping to keep StarDock afloat through purchases of what was clearly niche software products.

Along the same lines, StarDock's attitude that they should be grateful to the customer and therefore continue to produce games and company policies that keep people coming back also help to keep them afloat. Hell, I plan on buying Galactic Civilizations II just because StarDock has refused to use on-disc copy protection, even though I don't really care for that particular genre!

This is in stark contrast to the mega-game conglomerates like EA and Ubi who treat the customer as though they are potential criminals (and therefore deserve invasive copy protection) who should be grateful that they are being given the privilege of purchasing the game (and therefore expect the customer to tolerate a bug-ridden version while the company works on patches). Bullshit!

Since when does any company need to compete against the big-boys or die? From what I understand, Darwinia is exceptionally popular and that company doesn't come close to EA or UbiSoft. What about Zuma and other popular games? I still think back to Apogee and Id, both of which were independents that profited through a successful shareware model.

The notion that you have to compete with the big boys and have big-budget games in order to survive is complete and utter bullshit. Find your niche, make great games, get great word-of-mouth, and treat your customers with respect. You'll make it in the gaming world. You might not be as big as EA or Ubi, but that's not necessarily a bad thing either.